"Come along, boys and girls!" he exclaimed,--"Come and plant the Maypole in the big meadow yonder, as you did last year! It is a holiday for us all to-day,--for me as well as for you! It has always been a holiday even before the days when great Elizabeth was Queen of England, and though many dear old customs have fallen into disuse with the changing world, St. Rest has never yet been robbed of its May-day festival! Be thankful for that, children!--and come along;-- but move carefully!--keep order,--and sing as you come!"
Whereupon Susie Prescott lifted up her pretty voice again and her hazel wand baton at the same moment, and started the chorus with the verse: "We have been rambling all this night, And almost all this day; And now returning back again, We bring you in the May!"
And thus carolling, they passed through the garden moving meadow- wards, Walden at the head of the procession,--and Baby Hippolyta seated on his shoulder, was so elated with the gladsome sights and sounds, that she clasped her chubby arms round 'Passon's' neck and kissed him with a fervour that was as fresh and delightful as it was irresistibly comic.
Bainton, making his way along the southern wall of the orchard, to take a 'glance round' as he termed it, at the condition of the wall fruit-trees before his master joined him on the usual morning tour of inspection, stopped and drew aside to watch the merry procession winding along under the brown stems dotted with thousands of red buds splitting into pink-and-white bloom; and a slow smile moved the furrows of his face upward in various pleasant lines as he saw the 'Passon' leading it with a light step, carrying the laughing 'Ipsie' on his shoulder, and now and again joining in the 'Mayers' Song' with a mellow baritone voice that warmed and sustained the whole chorus.
"There 'e goes!" he said half aloud--"Jes' like a boy!--for all the wurrld like a boy! I reckon 'e's got the secret o' never growin' old, for all that 'is 'air's turnin' a bit grey. 'Ow many passons in this 'ere neighbrood would carry the children like that, I wonder? Not one on 'em!--though there's a many to pick an' choose from--a darned sight too many if you axes my opinion! Old Putty Leveson, wi's bobbin' an' 'is bowin's to the east--hor!--hor!--hor!--a fine east 'e's got in 'is mouldy preachin' barn, wi' a whitewashed wall an' a dirty bit o' tinsel fixed up agin it--he wouldn't touch a child o' ourn, to save 'is life--though 'e's got three or four mean, lyin' pryin' brats of 'is own runnin' wild about the place as might jest as well 'ave never been born. And as for Francis Anthony, the 'igh pontiff o' Riversford, wi's big altar-cloak embrided for 'im by all the poor skinny spinsters wot ain't never 'ad no chance to marry--'e'd see all the children blowed to bits under the walls of Jericho to the sound o' the trumpets afore 'e'd touch 'em! Talk o' saints!--I'm not very good at unnerstannin' that kind o' folk, not seein' myself 'owever a saint could manage to get on in this mortal wurrld; but I reckon to think there's a tollable imitation o' the real article in Passon Walden--the jolly sort o' saint, o' coorse,-- not the prayin', whinin', snuffin' kind. 'E's been doin' nothin' but good ever since 'e came 'ere, which m'appen partly from 'is not bein' married. If 'e'd gotten a wife, the place would a' been awsome different. Not but wot 'e ain't a bit cranky over 'is, flowers 'isself. But I'd rather 'ave 'im fussin' round than a petticut arter me. A petticut at 'ome's enough, an' I ain't complainin' on it, though it's a bit breezy sometimes,--but a petticut in the gard'nin' line would drive me main wild--it would reely now!"